I Shall But Love Thee Better
by Baron Munchausen
Summary: Spoilers for 3.03, but given a thorough Romeo & Juliet AU treatment thereafter. I'm really sorry about this. If tragedy isn't your thing, please don't read.


**_I am really sorry about this - but I watched 3.03 again last night and it brought all sorts of tragic thoughts and feelings to the surface. Thanks to MissLillyDarcy for the suggestion of Elizabeth Barratt Browning in her great story 'Freedom'. You must read it, if you haven't already._**

* * *

.

"Goodbye, my dearest darling, and may God bless you, always."

He turned and began to walk down the nave, away from her. He heard her crying and fought the overpowering desire to look back. He knew that if he did he would not be able to stop himself from running back to her, holding her, begging for her forgiveness, and continuing with the ceremony, thereby condemning her to a life of soul-destroying drudgery and early widowhood.

Outside, Sampson quickly put out his cigarette when he saw his master, and opened the car door, but Anthony couldn't bear to be in that car now, the car he'd been in with her so many, many times. He began to march over the fields, along paths he'd known all his life; paths he'd scampered along as a boy; paths he'd paced as an anxious young man; and now, as an old man, broken and broken-hearted, his feet led him back to Locksley unseeing since his eyes were blinded with tears.

Oakley was stunned to see his master back so early, and knew something was very wrong. Anthony fled straight into the library.

"Sir?"

"Oakley, I am not at home to anyone, do you understand?"

"Yes Sir."

Oakley hovered, but it appeared he'd been dismissed. Sir Anthony would tell him what had happened in his own time, he felt sure.

Anthony looked out over the lawns and watched the sunset. This was…had been…should've been his wedding day. Somehow he'd kindled a warmth between that lovely girl and himself; a kinship of spirits. It had lasted years, since before the war. In the last few months it had deepened further, at least for him, into a passion that gripped him with fear and incredible joy, day and night. But it had also become a steady and abiding love that had led him to believe that he could make her happy, perhaps not as happy as she made him, but happy enough. That sounded like Robert only a few days ago over the port. Happy enough wasn't good enough, not for Edith. Overhearing the Dowager Countess' snide insults to Travis had been the last straw. If that was what everyone thought of them, of him, then he couldn't do it. He was right not to do it. No matter how sharp the pain now, Edith was young, and strong, and would get over it. She would then be able to live her life to the full with a man younger than him, more virile, able to keep up, uninjured, able to hold her with both arms. Yes, he had done the right thing.

At eight o'clock Oakley enquired about dinner. Anthony waved him away, then, as an afterthought, requested a fresh bottle of his finest brandy. When Oakley brought it, and a clean glass, Anthony told him none of the staff would be needed again that night and they could all retire, except Oakley – could he return in half an hour?

Anthony waited for a few minutes to make sure he would be left alone. Then he sat at his desk and gathered what he needed: paper, pens, the Will that had been drawn up for him prior to his second marriage, a large glass of the brandy Oakley had just brought, and a copy of Elizabeth Barratt Browning's _Sonnets from the Portuguese_. He thought he knew them by heart, but like any good scholar, preferred to use the texts anyway. And one more thing he didn't bring out, not yet.

He redrafted his Will. This took some time simply because his grief threatened to cloud his capacity with the words that needed to be accurate if his wishes were to be carried out. Oakley would witness it, and then that would be the end of it.

After he'd done that, and Oakley had returned to sign his name, Anthony set about the other tasks. A letter to his sister. He'd never been extremely close to her, but they had an unspoken understanding. He hoped she wouldn't be too harsh on him. Letters to the bank, and his solicitor were easy.

Finally, after midnight, he began the most difficult task of all: writing to Edith. Whatever could he say to make anything better? _I did it for you_? No, that sounded as though he was blaming her. _Forget me_? Anthony knew Edith well enough that she would not do that, not quickly, and that knowledge made his heart ache still more.

Eventually, he left it to Elizabeth Barratt Browning, who had been a much greater writer than he'd ever be. The letter to Edith said:

_._

_My dearest darling,_

_I love thee with the breath,_

_Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,_

_I shall but love thee better after death._

_Anthony_

_._

All his tasks completed, he saw no reason to put it off any longer. He finished his brandy, pulled his revolver from his desk, put it to his head, and fired.

* * *

.

"Spinsters get up for breakfast."

Edith washed and dressed, more numb than hurt. It had only been yesterday. But everything before Anthony's words in the Church felt like decades ago. When was the last time she had smiled or laughed? It had been the last time she had been with Anthony before yesterday. Would she ever feel anything ever again? She looked at their engagement photograph, looked into his eyes. Oh, yes; she would feel this leaden grief and a pain like a dagger in her heart for the rest of her life.

Papa and Matthew looked at her and then at each other. _Here comes the concerned pity_, she thought. I should be grateful.

"You came down." It was a question rather than a statement.

"Yes." Somehow a plain statement of fact was easier than an explanation.

Matthew reached for her hand as she sat down. He said nothing, for which she was grateful, but smiled sadly at her.

With that gentle encouragement, Edith suddenly found she wanted to talk, without the need for tears, but about Anthony and to other men.

"This should have been the first day of our honeymoon. We were going to Rome, and then Florence and Venice. Anthony is very knowledgeable about the Renaissance; I was looking forward to him telling me things. I think he would have liked that just as much as I would have. I was also looking forward to sampling Italian gelato. They say it is the best in the world."

Robert and Matthew just listened, supportively.

"Why do you think he did it?" she said suddenly.

The men still kept their counsel, rather more tensely now.

"He always was worried that he was too old for me, and with his arm and everything, but I thought we'd got past that. I thought he knew I loved him."

The tears would not be held back any longer and she began weeping noiselessly.

Robert was leaning over to rub her shoulders in comfort when Carson entered with Oakley.

"My Lord, Oakley is Sir Anthony's butler. He bears solemn news."

* * *

.

Robert had never been more proud of his middle daughter. She heard what Oakley had to say, and although she turned whiter than snow, she didn't cry, or scream, or make any kind of reaction, as some women might have done. She looked at the letter placed in her hands by Oakley, and she asked a few factual, practical questions:

"Is Locksley mine now, or what?"

"I believe we have some legal procedures to complete, my lady, but then, yes, Locksley is yours."

"When do you expect the funeral to be?"

"That is yet to be decided."

"Does Dr. Clarkson know when it happened?"

"He thinks between one and two o'clock this morning, my lady."

"Where is Sir Anthony now?"

"We've laid him out on his own bed."

"That's good. He would have preferred that, I'm sure, to some faceless undertakers' parlour. Would it be alright with you, Oakley, if I returned to Locksley with you to see him?"

"Edith, I don't think…" Robert began.

But she turned her brown eyes on him, burning intensely with the passion she was not expressing with her voice, and he knew that she had to do this.

"Would you like someone to come with you?"

"Perhaps Anna."

"Very well."

"I'm sure that would be fine, my lady" Oakley managed.

* * *

.

In Anthony's car, the ghosts of journeys and encounters past bothered Edith: Anthony's lovely deep voice talking about weddings being reminders of one's loneliness, here in the back seat in Grantham village. The last time he rode in this car would have been to Downton Church, yesterday. She took out the letter Oakley had given her, but put it back. No, not yet.

Oakley showed her up to Anthony's room, which she had never seen before. Anthony lay on his bed, covered with a sheet. Oakley turned it down to the shoulders for Edith, then placed a steadying hand on her arm, but Edith looked utterly composed.

"Anna, will you wait downstairs please? Thank you Oakley."

For a long while, Edith just looked at him. He looked asleep, but of course, she'd never seen him asleep. The wound to his head, just in the hair, had swollen, but Oakley and the staff had looked after him well so he looked decent and clean. She hadn't really thought about it, but she had so wanted to see his eyes again, one last time, but his eyes had been closed and she didn't want to disturb him. She took out the letter, and read it. Only then did she begin to cry.

Once the wave of pain had passed, she looked about her. On his bedside table was a framed photograph of her. That almost set her off again, but she was looking for his dressing room. It took her a little while to find what she sought, rummaging about in a dead man's possessions, feeling simultaneously guilty and justified seeing as this should have become her bedroom last night, and now belonged to her legally anyway. When she found his razor she brought it back to the bed with her. A razor, she thought: the most personal possession a man has; a little bit of him.

She laid herself down on the bed beside Anthony. She traced her fingers over the scars on the right side of his body. Here was the wound they had spoken about, argued about so often, but which she had never seen. She stroked his cheek trailing along the line of his beard. Finally, she reached up and kissed his lips. They were cold. Anthony had never kissed her. _I'm torturing myself_, she thought. She arranged them so that Anthony's good arm was around her shoulders and her head was resting on his chest before she dragged the razor through her wrists one after the other. Far more quickly than she had expected she became faint, and darkness rushed in to claim her, but not before she heard Anthony's voice, strong, clear, and close to her:

"Come to me, my love, my dearest darling Edith. Come to me."

* * *

.

In a corner of Downton Churchyard, there are two headstones close together bearing these inscriptions:

.

Lady Maud Strallan  
1860—1896

Edward Strallan  
1896

Wife and son of Sir Anthony Strallan  
_With God_

_._

Sir Anthony Strallan  
1871—1920

Lady Edith Crawley  
1894—1920

_United in Death_

_.  
_


End file.
